Your Arms Feel Like Home
by Marvelicious
Summary: Who says you have to meet someone in life to be their soulmate? Besides, the axis-mundi is much too long to travel alone. Jo/Jess


"Let me guess. You knew a Winchester?" Jess has seen too much on her journey already - enough that she doesn't even bother asking who the blonde holding out a beer to her is. All is eventually revealed in it's own time here.

Instead, she asks "How'd you know?" accepting the beer wearily and sliding onto a barstool. The axis-mundi is a lot longer than she'd ever thought it would be, and a lot lonelier. Of course, that could just be from the realization that the love of her life was never who she thought he was.

The girl grins, leaning over the wooden countertop and giving Jess a bit of an eyeful. "You've got that look to you," She says, like it's some big secret, "that broken resignment that wants to be resentment, but can't quite bring yourself to hate him, can you? Plus," The girl laughs, picking up a rag to wipe some condensation off the bar, "you are dead - no offense."

Jess can't help a grin back. It's infectious. "Nope," She agrees, "every time I try to hate him for getting me killed, all I see are his adorable puppy-dog eyes." Somehow, she's not surprised that they have a bit of a track record. She wonders if this was another girlfriend of Sam's - blonde, and gorgeous enough that Jess would have been worried if they'd ever met while they were alive.

"Ahh, you must be Jess then." The girl replies, "You're even more beautiful than I imagined."

"Were you-?" Jess tries to ask, blushing a bit, not exactly sure what the etiquette is for asking someone if they've slept with your boyfriend once you're both dead. "Did Sam,"

If anything, the blonde seems amused by that. There's no one else in the bar, so she hops up onto the counter, swinging her legs over onto Jess' side without a thought. "Nope," She chuckles, "you should be honored, Sam hasn't even looked at a blonde since you. I had a crush on his brother for the longest time though. Name's Jo."

Jess isn't sure how she feels about Sam getting on with his life without her - and that leads to way too many questions - so she changes the topic, staring down at the glass in her hand. It's petty, but she's glad Jo wasn't her replacement. "Let me guess, they got you killed too?"

"Yep." Jess is honestly detached enough to find their luck funny at this point, and evidently Jo agrees with her, because they're both laughing a little bit later after trying and failing to hold it back.

Jo slips down onto the barstool next to her, bumping her shoulder gently like they're old friends. "Here's to getting killed by the Winchesters," She proposes as a toast, holding up a bottle of her own. Jess giggles as she seconds it, glasses clinking delicately in the silence of the empty bar.

She doesn't know how much Jo's been through, but she sees a fair bit of it in her smile and in her eyes. The girl was a hunter, just like her Sam. But the road is long, and they're both lost now: together in a bar that Jess has never seen in her life, with a girl who knows more than she ever did.

"He never spoke about you unless he was drunk," Jo tells Jess a minute or two later. She sounds wistful, "I guess it hurt too much otherwise, but I used to look forward to the stories once I got him going." A pause. "I think I started to miss you as much as he did after a while."

She leans in, and Jess doesn't even have to think. It feels right. Their lips meet, soft, hesitant, and for all that it's their first kiss, it feels familiar.

Jo pulls back just enough to smile at her, and that's when it clicks. This is heaven, and this is forever. Jess grins back at her in the dim light, breathing in the smell of beer and sawdust and Jo. Yeah, she could do this forever.

She tugs Jo back to her, arms tangling gently in the other girl's hair. Then they're kissing again, pulling each other closer until there's no distance between them anymore.

Jess' chest is filling up with emotions she can't identify, but doesn't really feel the need to either. For the first time in a long time, she doesn't feel like she's lost anymore. It feels good, so who is she to question?

It hits her later, when Jo's lying stretched out on top of her up on the bar counter, both of them sated and happy.

It finally feels like coming home.


End file.
